Why Wind Turbines Suck

The most expensive and unreliable, wind turbines really suck

Wind power is the worst of the all. It is expensive, unreliable, inefficient, has a short lifespan, requires vast resources and land, kills and disrupts wildlife, and to top it all off wind turbines destroy the natural beauty of wherever they are installed. With abundant, cheap reliable hydrocarbons and even SMR technology paving the way for fresh innovations in the nuclear sector, we have to wonder just why oh why are we bankrupting ourselves to install more wind turbines.

Reason No.1 Why Wind Turbines Suck - Material Cost

When we say wind turbines suck, we don’t just mean they suck massive amounts of money from the population and give little to nothing back, no, they really are terrible ways to try and power an energy hungry society like the one we have painstakingly crafted over the centuries.

Wind turbine construction demands an extraordinary amount of human labour and resources compared to other energy production methods. A single 2-3 megawatt turbine, soaring over 120 meters with blades spanning up to 60 meters, requires roughly 1,000 tons of steel, 2,500 tons of concrete, and 45 tons of fibreglass or carbon fibre. Add 3-4 tons of copper for wiring, hundreds of pounds of rare earth metals like neodymium and dysprosium for magnets, plus aluminum, zinc, and lubricants.

Mining these materials is labor-intensive. Steel and concrete production involve thousands of workers operating heavy machinery in energy-hungry plants. Extracting copper and rare earths requires skilled teams managing strip-mining or chemical leaching, often in remote regions like China or Australia. Producing one ton of rare earths can involve hundreds of man-hours and generate 2,000 tons of waste, demanding specialised labor for disposal. Transporting these materials globally—via diesel-powered ships and trucks—relies on coordinated logistics crews moving thousands of tons across continents.

Manufacturing is equally demanding. Forging steel towers, casting concrete foundations, and moulding composite blades require skilled workers, engineers, and high-energy facilities. Assembly and installation involve teams operating cranes, heavy equipment, and sometimes helicopters, with each turbine site requiring weeks of coordinated effort. Compare this to, say, a natural gas plant, where a single facility produces far more power with less material and labour per megawatt.

The human and resource intensity of wind turbines—per installation—far outstrips Gas although is still beaten by hydro and solar.

Reason No.2 Why Wind Turbines Suck - Lifespan

The Renewable Energy Foundation has a brilliant presentation by Professor Gordon Hughes which breaks down the limited life span of different kinds of wind turbine installations as well as so much more. From small to big to offshore and floating offshore. The failure rate is enormous and their entire life span is only 15-25 years.

“Figure 6 shows the failure curves by turbine category focusing on the time to the first equipment failure. The results are similar if alternative failure indicators are used. The conclusions are that (i) offshore turbines are less reliable than onshore turbines, and (ii) the older small (< 1 MW) onshore turbines were much more reliable than the 2+ MW turbines that dominate wind farms constructed since 2005. Nearly 60% of offshore turbines will experience an equipment failure in their first 5 years of operation. The reliability of 2+ MW onshore turbines deteriorates over time, so that the risk of failure increases sharply once they have been operating for more than 10 years. Finally, there are strong locational differences within Denmark with the expected number of months affected by equipment failure over a 20-year operating life increasing from 8 months in the west of the country to 15 months in the east. The reason seems to be a combination of site choice and wind turbulence caused by wind flows over land for the prevailing westerly winds.”

~ Professor Gordon Hughes – Renewable Energy Foundation

A turbine’s 15-25-year lifespan ends with decommissioning, where recycling steel is manageable, but disposing of fibreglass blades often requires additional labor due to their non-recyclable nature.

Reason No.3 Why Wind Turbines Suck - Constraint Payments

This following section is a sneak peek from Chapter 5 of my upcoming new book: The Advanced Guide To The Climate Con set for release late August.

“The failure rate leads to a dramatic increase in cost of fixing the turbines which is far higher for offshore turbines. Then add onto all of this cost a big source of what makes wind turbines so expensive – constraint payments.

Constraint payments for wind turbines are utterly bonkers when you dig into the logic—or lack thereof. The climate cult pushes renewables as the holy grail, yet we’re paying wind farm operators millions to not generate electricity when the grid can’t handle their output. In 2022, UK wind farms pocketed over £200 million in constraint payments, essentially rewarding them for doing nothing.

This exposes the grid’s fragility and the overzealous rush to slap turbines everywhere without upgrading infrastructure. If wind power is so reliable and essential, why are we burning cash to switch it off?The insanity deepens when you consider the economics. Consumers foot the bill through higher energy prices, while hydrocarbon plants are often fired up to fill the gap—ironic for a “green” solution. The narrative claims wind saves the planet, but the data screams inefficiency: turbines operate at 30-40% capacity on average, and their intermittency demands backup systems that undermine the whole “net-zero” fantasy. Meanwhile, the environmental cost of turbine production—mining rare earths, habitat disruption—gets swept under the rug. Constraint payments aren’t just wasteful; they’re a glaring symptom of a dogmatic, poorly planned energy policy that prioritises optics over reality.

As can be seen by the graph above, wind turbine constraint payments have ballooned since 2010 as more have been installed and are projected to absolutely sky rocket by 2030 costing approximately £1 Billion pounds every year. This is the insanity we are dealing with and shows clear as day why we shouldn’t be trying to install anymore wind turbines. But wait, there are still more reasons!”

There ends the sneak preview. Super excited to bring this new book to you all. In the meantime before release, why not check out my original Beginners Guide To The Climate Con book?

Reason No.4 Why Wind Turbines Suck - Intermittency

To put it simply, what happens when the wind stops!? Well, we need a quick to start reliable source of energy and that comes in the form of hydrocarbons. So for every wind turbine installed we need gas power also installed to back it up. Madness. Nobody does a better job at explaining all of this than Paul Burgess. Check out his video series below covering what happens when the wind stops.

Reason No.5 Why Wind Turbines Suck - Financially Unviable

Wind turbines not only take up a lot of land and resources but all of this comes at a massive financial cost. These spinning bird chopper eye sores are just not worth the investment and unlike was predicted by the climate cult, costs are not going down but up! Even with the maturation of the industry costs are only going up in every way making wind power less financially viable every passing day.

“But there is worse to come. Figure 4 and 5 shows the evolution of average opex costs for typical onshore and offshore projects. The graphs are based on analyses of large samples spread over 15 years which allow for turbine size, water depth, OFTO status and other factors. In each graph the blue line shows the costs for a project commissioned in 2008. Note that opex cost is reported in £000s per MW per year at 2018 prices. The reason is that the expected load factor for new projects has increased over time. The grey line shows the costs for a project commissioned in 2018. For the offshore wind farms the 2008 project is assumed to be in shallow water with no OFTO while the 2018 project is in deep water with an OFTO. The operating costs allow for OFTO charges in the latter case.”

~ Professors Gordon Hughes – Renewable Energy Foundation

So with wind power we can see clear as day that the worst is yet to come and we should do everything we can to oppose the further destruction of our countryside and bank balance in the name of pursuing more ‘green’ energy. Nothing is green about these monstrosities and hopefully we will live to see the day they are all decommissioned and relegated to the history books as a bad mistake and a stain on the industrial progress of humanity.